As part of the agreement between the National Archives and the Nixon Foundation governing the transfer of facilities of the private Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace to the National Archives and its new federal Nixon library, the Foundation has donated approximately 78,000 pages of formerly closed documents about President Richard Nixon’s life and political activities.
These boxes were returned to President Nixon in 1987 because they contained materials that did not relate to the statutory duties of the president or to abuses of governmental power as defined by the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974.
A selection of these documents is available below as pdf files. Please visit the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, to research all of the documents.
The materials being released come from two sources:
The Special Files, which was created by Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman in 1972 to segregate its most sensitive information from the White House Central filing system. These approximately 58,000 pages materials consist of sensitive political discussions regarding political campaigns and family matters. Included in the release from the Special Files are materials whose release was contested by President Nixon on the eve of NARA’s planned opening of this material in 1987.
The Central Files, which includes political files relating to the 1968 presidential campaign, prominent Nixon advisers such as counsel Len Garment and economist Herb Stein, and fundraising memoranda. This collection was originally a part of the main White House filing system used by administration staff to maintain non-sensitive records. The approximately 20,000 pages of records were returned to President because they did not pertain to his statutory duties as chief executive.
